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I’ve had some challenges over the last three months. I like to look at challenges as opportunities. I do take a break after each semester, but I didn’t plan for this break to be quite so long…haha.

This break was so important. It gave me a chance to think about where I’m going in my career, as a photographer, as an artist, as a business. I’ve been studying the business of photography even more. I’m really excited to take everything I’ve learned over the last three years and launch my business this year. (It’s official….yay!)

It will be a slow and careful start but very, very exciting.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
– Confucius

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Apple-themed shoot by British photographer Eleanor Hardwick. So perfectly beautiful-le sigh, perfect for the moment.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

This post is a little tribute to one of my favorite inspirational characters, Steve Jobs, Amen!

We all lost a world-class visionary yesterday, we could never thank you enough. You changed the way we use the web, listen to music, design stuff and the way we live. Definitely, one of the most innovative thinkers the world has ever seen.

You made my life so much easier, prettier and fun, thanks to your innovative spirit, you left an incredible legacy. A genius, a risk-taker, and above all, an inspiration.. Rest in peace boss.

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Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor describe documentary photography in this way “to let the subjects, the living participants of a social reality, speak to you face to face. Having looked at a documentary book, you could no longer be ignorant of them. You had seen their faces.”

I believe this is absolutely true. The photographs revealed the devastation and hardship of the migrant worker’s life. Due to the published photographs of this event, the plight of the migrant worker now had a face.

This is a great article on Dorothea Lange’s famous Migrant Mother photographs. This article with accompanying photos really shows how difficult and harsh life was for migrant workers. Florence Owens Thompson is the mother featured in this series, which was created in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. Dorothea Lange explains in detail:

I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Another assignment (last semester) involved creating a poster composed of various textures and yet be a cohesive and identifiable image. I used my own images as a starting point and added texture and played with color. I like the end result {two versions: hot and cold}.

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This semester (or should I say last semester since it’s the summer?…time flies) I was challenged with designing a promo piece / mailer for my photography studio. I wanted to do something interesting that also revealed me as a person so I came up with this retro inspired piece. My family has a doll collection that was passed down from my grandmother who traveled all over the world. With each country she visited she added to her collection. She was also a huge Michael Jackson fan. My sister and I both dance and are hugely inspired by the king of pop. So I couldn’t help but be notice the irony of the King sitting among the other dolls.

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For a final project I created some advertising/marketing pieces for a local small-business. Mane Envy is a new salon in West Phoenix…the owner decided she wanted a vintage inspired photoshoot showcasing some great hair.